Donna Noble gets headaches sometimes. Just little things can trigger it, too. Some nutter on the street'll say something like, "The circle must be broken" and suddenly she'll be on her knees holding her head, Shaun grabbing at her elbow, asking her what's wrong. Or she'll see the deepest shade of blue, and she'll start grinning even as her head's aching, and she'll take a few aspirins when she gets home.
Shaun takes her to the Doctor one day, because he's just the sweetest guy and he does things like that. Shaun holds her hand when the doctor tells Donna she's terminal brain cancer.
She quits her job then, and Shaun doesn't blame her, and she uses some of the lotto money to keep the house in shape. She still goes to chemo, even though the doctors have told her there's nothing she can do. Shaun always insists, even though Donna misses her fire engine-red hair.
She's resting just after a session of chemo, and she can feel her life slipping away. Shaun's holding her hand, like always, and then he has to go.
She has to go too.
A strange man walks up to her then. Must be a resident or something. He's thin, and he's got kind of a baby face, and he's wearing a bow tie, which she tries to point out, but her brain's slowing down.
The man puts both his hands on her temples, delicately, like she should know him.
And she does, she should, but he's changed his face and he can do that because he's a Time Lord and what the bloody hell's a Time Lord and it's him, it's him, it's the Doctor, she remembers now, and who's the Doctor, doctor who, but she can't say that, she can't say his name, and she doesn't even know him, but she does, and-
"Hello, Donna."
-and is it him, is it really that great big outer space dunce, that dumbo, who, who is that guy, does she know him, yes don't be stupid of course she does she's a human-Time Lord metacrisis, what the bloody hell, and-
"Goodbye, Doctor."